Upcoming Programs and Events

Pastepaper and Beyond, a presentation by Madeleine Durham

Open to the Public; All are Welcome
Saturday, January 12, 2019, 1 pm to 3 pm
Santa Fe Community College Boardroom

In this presentation Madeleine Durham will talk about her magical pastepaper technique. She will give a brief history of what led to the discovery of her process and how she developed her technique to become what it is today. Madeleine will present slides of the progression of her work from discovery to present-day paste paintings. Look forward to an exciting visual feast!

In a moment of inspiration years ago, Madeleine Durham happened upon a way of creating pastepaper designs using a brush technique that has evolved into the paste paintings that she creates today. She shows her work in her hometown of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and around the country. She has produced special-edition work for Nawakum Press, Palace Press, Flea Circus Press, and one of the top three social media platforms. Her work has been used in one-of-a-kind books by Don Etherington and Monique Lallier, among many others. Madeleine’s papers can also be found in the collections of the Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the North Bennet Street School, the American Academy of Bookbinding, and the Morgan Conservatory. As a member of the Santa Fe Society of Artists, she displays and sells her fine wall art paste paintings during the warm-month weekends just off the city’s historic downtown plaza. More information: www.madeleinedurham.com.

Contemporary Pastepaper Technique, a workshop with Madeleine Durham

Members Only
Sunday, January 13, 2019, 9 am to 4 pm
Santa Fe Community College Fine Arts Room (712)

Madeleine’s pastepapers are a unique creation and a brilliant way to add a contemporary look your creative book art, collage, and calligraphy creations. In this workshop you will learn the brush technique that she has developed. You will learn what kind of brushes work best and how to hold and move them so that you create a variety of lines, shapes, and patterns. You will leave the class with a basic knowledge and the ability to create straight lines, wavy lines, subtle blending techniques, and geometric patterns. Madeleine’s pastepaper technique is delightfully spontaneous. Come to class ready to have fun! A short tool list will be sent upon registration. Paper and special brush are included in your fee.

Different Culture—Different Answer? Teaching Conservation Across Borders, a presentation by Lois Olcott Price

Open to the Public; All are Welcome
Saturday, February 9, 2019, 1 pm to 3 pm
Venue TBA

Do we value material cultural primarily for the physical object? Or because it somehow embodies the culture that made and used it? Can we divorce the object from the culture and from its role—past, present, and future—in that culture? These questions become particularly poignant as we view the ISIS destruction of the ancient Assyrian capital of Nimrud, the centuries of craft tradition applied to the restoration of the Forbidden City in China, the evolution of Mexico’s traditional retablos, and the withdrawal of sacred Puebloan artifacts from exhibition and study collections.

As conservation of cultural heritage has become an increasingly international discipline, conservators who trained and spent decades practicing in the American/European/fine arts tradition have been challenged to adapt to widely cultural environments and assumptions when they are recruited to teach abroad. Lois Olcott Price has taught in Europe, Mexico, Iraq, and China, often in collaboration with local and international colleagues. Each of these experiences has challenged traditional assumptions about cultural heritage and the why, the how, and for whom we seek to preserve it.

Lois will discuss her experiences as they relate to these questions and her deepening understanding of the critical role preservation of material culture plays in healing and reuniting cultures that have suffered trauma and conflict.

After a long career in book and paper conservation, Lois Olcott Price retired as Director of Conservation at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware in 2015 and moved to Santa Fe in 2017. She continues to research, consult, teach, and lecture on issues related to library and archival conservation, advocacy, and conservation education. Currently involved in training cultural heritage professionals in Iraq, she will return to the Iraqi Institute for the Conservation of Antiquities and Heritage in Erbil in September to meet with colleagues and plan future projects.

Capturing Sunlight, a presentation by Louise Grunewald

Open to the Public; All are Welcome
Friday, March 8, 2019, 7 pm to 9 pm
Venue TBA

Travel with Louise on her journey through calligraphy, design, and printmaking via letters, books, and broadsides.

Louise Grunewald teaches lettering, design, and printmaking workshops nationally and maintains her studio, Western Hands, in Durango, Colorado. Her artistic passions include lettering, Solarplate printmaking, watermedia painting, drawing, and book arts. The texts in her books are her own original writing. Louise’s studio work is largely inspired by time spent outdoors, and often taken from her sketchbook impressions of the natural world. Her work can be seen in numerous private and public collections, including the Fray Angelico Chavez History Library of the New Mexico History Museum in Santa Fe, the Portland Art Museum in Oregon, and the Klingspor Museum of Book and Letter Arts in Offenbach, Germany.

Solar-Powered Prints, a workshop with Louise Grunewald

Members Only
Saturday, March 9, and Sunday, March 10, 2019, 9 am to 4 pm
Santa Fe Community College Printmaking Room

Students will learn how to transfer their images to a UV-sensitive Solarplate using the power of the sun. We will begin by preparing an image for exposure onto a Solarplate. Techniques for exposing the plate, preparing paper for printing, inking the plate, and running small editions on an etching press will then be covered.

This versatile process is suitable for almost any kind of image, including words and text. While learning the exposure process, students will be free to experiment with creating a variety of images, from simple to more complex. Any written words or text can be transferred to a plate and then printed out in the correct (readable) orientation. Writing and imagery can be combined. Students can draw, paint, or collage their work, or use their photographs to print from. We will work with non-toxic, water-based inks to ensure safety for the environment and the participants. The intent of this class is to teach the very accessible technical aspects of the process in an atmosphere of fun and guided experimentation. Students will end the weekend with small editions of their images and an increased understanding of the world of printmaking. This class is open to all levels. No printmaking experience is necessary. A letter from Louise and a tool list will be sent upon registration. Solar plates and paper will be available for sale at the workshop.

Illustrations and Children’s Books, a presentation by Tricia Tusa

Open to the Public; All are Welcome
Saturday, April 13, 2019, 1 pm to 3 pm
Venue TBD

Children’s book author and illustrator Tricia Tusa will speak on 37 years of bookmaking, during which she has published more than 40 books and has received numerous awards and honors. Tricia will take the audience through her own process, including the ups and downs.

In addition to making books, Tricia makes and sells handmade ceramics and sewn things. Some of her work can be seen on her website, http://www.triciatusa.com/

In Place, a presentation by Dorothy Caldwell

Open to the Public; All are Welcome
Saturday, May 11, 2019, 1 pm to 3 pm
Santa Fe Community College Boardroom

In this presentation Dorothy Caldwell will speak about her work, the land, and how we come to know “place.” She will share her experiences working onsite, in remote locations, where a personal sense of place is arrived at through walking, gathering, touching, and recording. These onsite explorations provide a basis for large-scale textile works created back in the studio.

The vocabulary is drawn from textile traditions that speak to the everyday such as stitching, darning, mending, and patching. “I approach my cloth as something that needs to be repaired,” says Dorothy. “Like the marks on the landscape, these processes encode a sense of time and history.”

Click on the images above to enlarge.

Dorothy is a graduate of the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and presently maintains an active international exhibition and teaching schedule from her studio in Hastings, Ontario, Canada. She has carried out research projects in Japan and India, and has worked onsite in the Australian outback and the Canadian Arctic. She is the recipient of grants and awards including the Bronfman Award, given annually to one Canadian craftsperson. Her work is included in the permanent collections of the American Museum of Art and Design, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the International Quilt Museum and Study Center at the University of Nebraska; the Canadian Consulate, Bangkok, Thailand; and the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the Department of External Affairs, among others. Visit http://dorothycaldwell.com/.

Open to the Public; All are Welcome
Saturday, June 8, 2019, 1 pm to 3 pm
Santa Fe Community College Boardroom

The collaborative mother/daughter duo of writer Miriam Sagan and multi-media artist Isabel Winson-Sagan will share their projects. These include an art/poetry trail off of Route 14, a collaborative public art piece in the Santa Fe Railyard, a video, an installation piece in an ancient silo in Japan, renga, and numerous geocaches. Their meditative studio practice is based on a contemporary version of suminagashi, Japanese style marbling, and free writing. In addition to showing images and discussing their process, Miriam and Isabel will have samples of their work and some free giveaway broadsides and books.

Isabel Winson-Sagan holds a B.A. in religious studies from the University of New Mexico. She is currently studying intermedia fine arts at Santa Fe Community College. Her two books, in collaboration with poet Miriam Sagan, are the e-book Swimming in Reykjavik (The Moon Press) and Spilled Ink, for which she did the typography and design. Isabel has been a resident at numerous locations including Studio Kura in Japan, Wildacres in North Carolina, Herekeke Arts Center in New Mexico, and SIM House in Iceland. Her website is http://isabelws.com.

Miriam Sagan is the author of more than 25 books of poetry, memoir, and fiction. Her recent collection Seven Places in America includes residencies in the Everglades National Park, Petrified Forest National Park, Andrews Experimental Forest, THE LAND/an art site, and Stone Quarry Art Park. She has also been in residence in a trailer at the edge of a bombing range in Great Basin with Center for Land Use Interpretation and at Gullkistan in Iceland. She has received the Santa Fe Mayor’s Award for excellence in the arts and a Poetry Gratitude award from New Mexico Literary Arts. She founded and ran the creative writing program at Santa Fe Community College in New Mexico until her retirement in 2016. She blogs at Miriam’s Well (http://miriamswell.wordpress.com).

This workshop will teach each participant to create suminagashi, Japanese-inspired marbling on paper. We will work with low-impact materials—water trays, ink, and inexpensive paper. We will also create poetry based on “weathergrams”—short poems about the environment and our inner selves. The workshop will be structured so that text and marbling can be combined for a final product. You will have pieces to take home that can be collaged, used in bookmaking, or hung as ephemera to weather out into the atmosphere. All materials will be provided, but here is an overview if you want supplies to continue this practice—https://maternalmitochondria.com/2018/09/26/what-is-suminagashi/

Open to the Public; All are Welcome
Friday, July 19, 2019, 7 pm
Santa Fe Community College Boardroom

Through images and stories, Minnesota artist Erica Spitzer Rasmussen discusses the development of her artistic practice. Regarding her paper garments, Rasmussen has stated, “I used clothing as subject matter because it allows me a ground on which to investigate identity and corporeality. My garments can encompass narrative qualities, illustrate and dissolve bodily fears, or act as talismanic devices to protect myself and loved ones from physical injury or psychological harm.” Regarding her books, she has said, “I began making books when a figurative painter-friend started portraying her female characters in giant Flemish ruffs. At first it was just a technical challenge. But I soon learned that bookmaking had the potential to incorporate sculptural methods and harbor meaningful content.” In addition to addressing the conceptual aspects of her work, Rasmussen also discusses her embellishing techniques with non-archival media.

Erica is an artist who creates handmade paper garments and small editions of hand-bound books. She received her BFA and MFA at the University of Minnesota (Minneapolis), which included coursework in Mexico and Greece. Rasmussen is a recipient of the 2018 Minnesota Book Artist Award and various grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board (1999, 2015, 2018). Other professional highlights include a papermaking residency in Vienna, Austria (2010), a solo exhibition in Mexico City, Mexico (2012), and two bookbinding residencies in Venice, Italy (2016, 2018). Her work has been featured in such magazines as FiberArts, Surface Design Journal, American Craft, and Hand Papermaking. Rasmussen teaches studio arts as a full professor at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul, Minnesota. Her artwork is exhibited internationally, and it resides in such collections as the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, the Minnesota History Center, Ripley’s Believe it or Not! Museum (Hollywood, California), and the Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense (Milan, Italy). Visit https://ericaspitzerrasmussen.com/

Members OnlySaturday, July 20, and Sunday, July 21, 9:30 am to 3:30 pmSanta Fe Community College Book Arts Room

This two-day workshop features low-tech methods for surfacing paper with inexpensive and commonplace materials. Among other things, dental floss, Band-Aids, red wine, beet juice, rusty washers, tomato paste, fire, and instant cocoa can provide surprisingly beautiful results. Students will be encouraged to paint, stitch, stencil, and laminate an odd assortment of supplies into decorative designs that can be applied to their bookmaking practice. Experiments will be compiled into a pamphlet-stitch swatchbook that documents the various media and techniques explored in class.

Students are asked to bring two tubes or bottles of acrylic paint, a blow dryer or heat gun, and wear messy clothes. Class Size: Limited to 12 participants. Cost: $175. To register, send a check for $175 payable to BAG, to Laura Wait, 108 Calle Francisca, Santa Fe, NM 87507, postmarked no earlier than March 8, 2019. For more information, contact Laura Wait at laurawait@mac.com.